Christmas Eve with grandma (lobsters, turkeys, and no place to park)
When I was a little kid, we always spent Christmas Eve with my dad's side of the family. He and two of his brothers were close at that time, and three of us cousins were within a year apart (and, up until we were 10, all only children), so it was a special time. The actual holiday was spent with the wives' families, and so it was.
The years went by and my uncles stopped getting along with each other, and dad's mom died, and there went any holiday celebrations with his side of the family. It was just Christmas Day. Mom's parents would come over and we'd cook and have a good time. Then my grandfather died, and grandma started getting up there in age, and she had a couple close calls in driving out here on her own, so we started picking her up and she'd spend the night with us.
Now, in her 90s, grandma isn't interested in spending a night away from home. Funny with how much traveling she used to do; she quit cold turkey. And it's a lot to go and pick her up, bring her back to our house, and then do it all again in one day. So, we hit upon having a meal close to her place. We ended up at Red Lobster, like we did for her birthday.
On our way, we spotted the resident turkey that hangs out by the Seventh Day Adventist church in North Aurora. This was the first time mom had seen him. I mean, a religious denomination that skews vegetarian and doesn't really celebrate holidays? I'd hang out there, too, if I were him.
Dad ended up driving. Had we simply met grandma there, or perhaps picked something up and taken it to her place, I may have driven, but we drove to her building, took her to Red Lobster, and the plan was to take her back home and hang out for a bit. That...is too much driving for me in the city, regardless of the vehicle I'm driving, but I *really* did not feel comfortable taking my two-week-old car there. This ended up being a good thing.
Red Lobster itself was fine, though we got seated at a table pretty far from the front door. We'd been seated at a relatively close table back in May, but we were pretty early for our reservation. Mom was super anxious, not knowing what traffic would be like, and had us leave about 12:20 for a 2 PM reservation. We got there about 1:30, since grandma was waiting for us in her lobby. It's a long walk down the aisle in the restaurant for someone who uses a cane, but she leaned on my arm and all was well. People are very sweet when she's around and our waitress was no exception, though at one point she asked my mom how she liked the sauce on her food and mom completely misheard her, so I had to explain that between the two of them, there was only one hearing aid. (I would later find out that grandma has a cyst in one of her ears, she estimated it's been there about 15 years, and she doesn't wear an aid in that ear because the cyst makes it hard to stay in and she doesn't want to lose it. It's also not recommended that the cyst be removed because it may cause more problems than it solves. Well, at least that explains the singular hearing aid.) Also, grandma called me a pig at the end of dinner. I'd purposely only eaten half of my meal and planned to take the rest home, so that when we were all finished, I was able to order a slice of cheesecake. We did share, but I ate the bulk of it, and as I was finishing it off, grandma was like, look at the pig! And my parents went, well, she *is* the one who ordered it! Thanks, grandma.
Next came the fun part. We dropped off mom and grandma at mom's building, then dad and I tried to find parking. The lot at her building was full, but it looked like maybe there was parking on the street. Nope; fireplug. Doing a circle around her whole complex revealed exactly zero parking spots. She lives adjacent to a school, so we tried that lot, only to discover the lots were barricaded. They're just swinging metal bars, nothing really dramatic, but they prevent cars from entering the lot. Great. Back to grandma's lot, where it was still full. Dad had seen some possible parking spots on the main street, so we turned and went there, except those spots required permits. Now we had to go up and around the block to come back. I'd started texting my mom to let her know since a two-minute parking job was now taking 20 minutes. At that point she said, just pull into the garage. Grandma had a whole honey-do list for us, including a couple things with her car, and I happened to have the spare garage door opener, so we went inside and grandma directed us to an empty parking space. She went, oh, I never see anyone parked here! Yeah, well, it has a number, so in theory it's assigned to someone, so we can't stay in here. Luckily nobody tried to park there while we were dealing with grandma's car; she'd wanted dad to put up her back seat, and people keep flashing her while she's driving so she wanted to be sure her headlights were okay. She didn't appear to be driving with her high beams on, so that was good.
With that taken care of, we were back to searching for a legitimate parking spot. One more turn around the complex and not a spot could be found. Sigh. We've never seen it this full. The next block over starts off like grandma's, with sets of condo buildings, but down the block there's a circle of single-family homes. We finally found street parking there. However, this was several blocks away and neither of us expected to do all that walking; we got lucky that we were wearing comfortable shoes and that it was in the 50s. Finally, we made it back to grandma's and upstairs to her place.
The big thing was to look at the TV in her bedroom. It hasn't worked in ages. The culprit: The batteries in her remote had died. Literally, that was it, but in the process of determining what was wrong, she unplugged her cable box so her TV didn't have any signal to accept. When dad finally put fresh batteries in the remote and showed grandma that it worked, she went, Papa used to do all that for me! Uh...he's been dead 8 years...you're going to have to do some of that for yourself at this point. (Several times today, she went, this is hard! Meaning life in general could be hard for her. I kind of want to tell her, yes, and this is why people your age move to assisted living; it's far easier than trying to do it all on your own. But there wasn't a good point to bring that up today.) She also asked me if I could raise the handles on her walker, and it took a few tries but I raised it as high as it would go, and she was pretty appreciative. We also checked the volume on her phone, since she complains she can't hear it. Yes, because she's deaf. I called it twice and it was plenty loud both times, but with the TV on the first time it was barely noticeable to her. I turned the TV off and tried a second time, and she sort of heard it then. Yeah...that's not the phone's fault. We also had her open her gifts and she kept protesting that we were spoiling her. I mean, I got her a calendar, which she needs. I wouldn't call that spoiling. Dad got her eggnog, mom got her some hangers and furry fingerless gloves, among several items, and we all gave her money. I meant for mine to go to Meals on Wheels. She went, I can use this to go gambling! ...Great.
Mom had wanted us to play a game, but I was yawning and my father, bored, was watching the Bears game in the living room (we'd all convened to her bedroom while he was fixing her TV; my seat was on her newly raised walker). Dad and I went to get the car, and picked up mom, and we talked about maybe driving around to look at lights--we remembered Rosemont had a really pretty setup back when we were cleaning out Papa's house 8 years ago--except dad's check engine light came on and kind of freaked us out. We think it might be a gas cap thing, especially since he ran a diagnostic on his car using a reader and app he already had attached and it came up with zero trouble codes; the roads in Chicago are terrible and bumpy and we were up and over a number of speed humps by grandma's. Anyway, we said, let's just go home, but our ride took us past an acquaintance's house that I'd heard was brightly decorated, and it did not disappoint. It was great. We made it home safely, though we did get caught by a quick train in West Chicago.
It was an unusual holiday for us, but weird is par for the course, and overall we had a good time and got home safely, so we'll call it a win.
The years went by and my uncles stopped getting along with each other, and dad's mom died, and there went any holiday celebrations with his side of the family. It was just Christmas Day. Mom's parents would come over and we'd cook and have a good time. Then my grandfather died, and grandma started getting up there in age, and she had a couple close calls in driving out here on her own, so we started picking her up and she'd spend the night with us.
Now, in her 90s, grandma isn't interested in spending a night away from home. Funny with how much traveling she used to do; she quit cold turkey. And it's a lot to go and pick her up, bring her back to our house, and then do it all again in one day. So, we hit upon having a meal close to her place. We ended up at Red Lobster, like we did for her birthday.
On our way, we spotted the resident turkey that hangs out by the Seventh Day Adventist church in North Aurora. This was the first time mom had seen him. I mean, a religious denomination that skews vegetarian and doesn't really celebrate holidays? I'd hang out there, too, if I were him.
Dad ended up driving. Had we simply met grandma there, or perhaps picked something up and taken it to her place, I may have driven, but we drove to her building, took her to Red Lobster, and the plan was to take her back home and hang out for a bit. That...is too much driving for me in the city, regardless of the vehicle I'm driving, but I *really* did not feel comfortable taking my two-week-old car there. This ended up being a good thing.
Red Lobster itself was fine, though we got seated at a table pretty far from the front door. We'd been seated at a relatively close table back in May, but we were pretty early for our reservation. Mom was super anxious, not knowing what traffic would be like, and had us leave about 12:20 for a 2 PM reservation. We got there about 1:30, since grandma was waiting for us in her lobby. It's a long walk down the aisle in the restaurant for someone who uses a cane, but she leaned on my arm and all was well. People are very sweet when she's around and our waitress was no exception, though at one point she asked my mom how she liked the sauce on her food and mom completely misheard her, so I had to explain that between the two of them, there was only one hearing aid. (I would later find out that grandma has a cyst in one of her ears, she estimated it's been there about 15 years, and she doesn't wear an aid in that ear because the cyst makes it hard to stay in and she doesn't want to lose it. It's also not recommended that the cyst be removed because it may cause more problems than it solves. Well, at least that explains the singular hearing aid.) Also, grandma called me a pig at the end of dinner. I'd purposely only eaten half of my meal and planned to take the rest home, so that when we were all finished, I was able to order a slice of cheesecake. We did share, but I ate the bulk of it, and as I was finishing it off, grandma was like, look at the pig! And my parents went, well, she *is* the one who ordered it! Thanks, grandma.
Next came the fun part. We dropped off mom and grandma at mom's building, then dad and I tried to find parking. The lot at her building was full, but it looked like maybe there was parking on the street. Nope; fireplug. Doing a circle around her whole complex revealed exactly zero parking spots. She lives adjacent to a school, so we tried that lot, only to discover the lots were barricaded. They're just swinging metal bars, nothing really dramatic, but they prevent cars from entering the lot. Great. Back to grandma's lot, where it was still full. Dad had seen some possible parking spots on the main street, so we turned and went there, except those spots required permits. Now we had to go up and around the block to come back. I'd started texting my mom to let her know since a two-minute parking job was now taking 20 minutes. At that point she said, just pull into the garage. Grandma had a whole honey-do list for us, including a couple things with her car, and I happened to have the spare garage door opener, so we went inside and grandma directed us to an empty parking space. She went, oh, I never see anyone parked here! Yeah, well, it has a number, so in theory it's assigned to someone, so we can't stay in here. Luckily nobody tried to park there while we were dealing with grandma's car; she'd wanted dad to put up her back seat, and people keep flashing her while she's driving so she wanted to be sure her headlights were okay. She didn't appear to be driving with her high beams on, so that was good.
With that taken care of, we were back to searching for a legitimate parking spot. One more turn around the complex and not a spot could be found. Sigh. We've never seen it this full. The next block over starts off like grandma's, with sets of condo buildings, but down the block there's a circle of single-family homes. We finally found street parking there. However, this was several blocks away and neither of us expected to do all that walking; we got lucky that we were wearing comfortable shoes and that it was in the 50s. Finally, we made it back to grandma's and upstairs to her place.
The big thing was to look at the TV in her bedroom. It hasn't worked in ages. The culprit: The batteries in her remote had died. Literally, that was it, but in the process of determining what was wrong, she unplugged her cable box so her TV didn't have any signal to accept. When dad finally put fresh batteries in the remote and showed grandma that it worked, she went, Papa used to do all that for me! Uh...he's been dead 8 years...you're going to have to do some of that for yourself at this point. (Several times today, she went, this is hard! Meaning life in general could be hard for her. I kind of want to tell her, yes, and this is why people your age move to assisted living; it's far easier than trying to do it all on your own. But there wasn't a good point to bring that up today.) She also asked me if I could raise the handles on her walker, and it took a few tries but I raised it as high as it would go, and she was pretty appreciative. We also checked the volume on her phone, since she complains she can't hear it. Yes, because she's deaf. I called it twice and it was plenty loud both times, but with the TV on the first time it was barely noticeable to her. I turned the TV off and tried a second time, and she sort of heard it then. Yeah...that's not the phone's fault. We also had her open her gifts and she kept protesting that we were spoiling her. I mean, I got her a calendar, which she needs. I wouldn't call that spoiling. Dad got her eggnog, mom got her some hangers and furry fingerless gloves, among several items, and we all gave her money. I meant for mine to go to Meals on Wheels. She went, I can use this to go gambling! ...Great.
Mom had wanted us to play a game, but I was yawning and my father, bored, was watching the Bears game in the living room (we'd all convened to her bedroom while he was fixing her TV; my seat was on her newly raised walker). Dad and I went to get the car, and picked up mom, and we talked about maybe driving around to look at lights--we remembered Rosemont had a really pretty setup back when we were cleaning out Papa's house 8 years ago--except dad's check engine light came on and kind of freaked us out. We think it might be a gas cap thing, especially since he ran a diagnostic on his car using a reader and app he already had attached and it came up with zero trouble codes; the roads in Chicago are terrible and bumpy and we were up and over a number of speed humps by grandma's. Anyway, we said, let's just go home, but our ride took us past an acquaintance's house that I'd heard was brightly decorated, and it did not disappoint. It was great. We made it home safely, though we did get caught by a quick train in West Chicago.
It was an unusual holiday for us, but weird is par for the course, and overall we had a good time and got home safely, so we'll call it a win.